By Katie Park ‘21
On the night before our spring break, Ms. Finnerty came to my room to check-in with me and told me that I should bring some of my textbooks with me because classes might be online after spring break. At the time, I simply thought that was not a possibility. There was an outbreak in European and Asian countries, which was probably the sign that I should be alarmed, but for some reason, I just was not. Then, after about two weeks, I found out that school would be remote until late May. I did not know how to process this news, but at the time, little did I know that Coronavirus would last way longer than late May.
As soon as I heard back from school, I flew back home, which is in South Korea. I was not able to go back to my dorm to pack my room, so I basically left everything behind and hopped on a plane. When I went back home, I was in quarantine for 14 days while I took classes remotely. There is a 13 hour time difference, so I could not attend some of my classes, and all my classes were at night, which felt very different. Keeping in touch with my close friends was also difficult because of the time difference. I would meet up with my friends from home, but I still felt a bit isolated. I could not help but think about everything that was being taken away from us.
When I came to the realization that things are not going to get drastically better any time soon, I decided to change my mindset. As cliche as it sounds, positivity is what has helped me go through these trying times. Instead of being frustrated about what was being taken away, I started feeling grateful for what I took for granted. Things that once seemed insignificant, like spending time with my friends in the dining hall complaining about our long days, all of a sudden felt special. While being grateful for the little things, on some days, I couldn’t help acknowledge how unnormal this “new normal” felt and complained about everything. I have discovered the important thing is to find the balance between being grateful and feeling frustrated, and that is how I have tried to cope with the situation.
Every generation faces hardships, be it a war, depression, or anything else, and the biggest hardship that our generation is facing at the moment is fighting the Coronavirus. They say every cloud has a silver lining. As we go through these remarkable times together, we will be stronger and be prepared to fight any hardships that are yet to come, even if they might be more challenging than the one we are currently fighting.